Buhari in no position to question role of NASS-House spokesman

By Nnaoma Chukwujindum

Nigeria’s lower House, the House of Representatives, says President Muhammadu Buhari cannot question the National Assembly on the role assigned to it by the constitution.

Abdulrazak Namdas, spokesman of the House told journalists on Wednesday in Abuja that the president can hold opinion of members of the national assembly but that he cannot question the role of parliament.

The House spokesman was responding to Tuesday’s comments by President Buhari who dared the legislators to confront him on the capital projects his administration included in the budget for the last two years.

Buhari, who spoke in the presidential villa while receiving members of the Buhari Support Organisation, said:

“This year and last year’s budget I took to the national assembly was the highest in capital projects – more than 1.3 trillion naira. Let anybody come and confront me publicly in the national assembly”.

“What have they been doing? Some of them have been there for 10 years. What have they been doing?”

Namdas said questioning the role of the national assembly could spell doom for Nigeria’s democracy.

“We believe that the president can hold an opinion as regards to the performance of individual members of the national assembly,” the spokesman said. In fact, our constituents have been doing just that, members of the national assembly have been replaced by their constituents as a result of such opinions.

“However, we want to believe that the president was not questioning the role of the national assembly as an institution of democracy because that will be a worrying sign. Our democracy will be in peril if he does that, but we believe he was not referring to that.”

The legislator said while it is true that president Buhari proposed N1.2 trillion for capital projects in the 2017 and 2018 budgets, he alone cannot take credit for it.

“We want to state that the president is commendable that in the last budget and this year. What he has put in for capital is N1.2 trillion. It is true, that is commendable but we also want to say that we will also share in the glory because the president brings the proposal while we do the approval,” he said.

“That means both the executive and legislature are working on the same matter to see that the president succeeds. We want to state again clearly that on the issue of budget, the 2017 budget was meant to run for 12 months. I want to tell you that we have not shortchanged anybody. Of we had passed this budget earlier, I can tell that the level of performance will not be here at the moment,” he added,.

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